Monday, November 01, 2004

Dutch incumbent KPN reported Q3 numbers today, and provides us with a couple of more data points of interest from the fixed line market disruption standpoint:

Line loss was up for the second consecutive quarter, at 0.9% sequentially.

Minutes on the fixed network tanked again, and YoY declines in outgoing voice minutes per line are accelerating again (on my calculations), now at 12.3% YoY in this quarter.

KPN delivered 15.1% sequential growth in its DSL line base, and grew retail DSL connections by 20.8%, but the unbundlers grew marginally faster, absorbing the growth element of the market that used to come from reselling the KPN wholesale product. This is similar to what we saw developing in France Telecom's numbers last week.

ECTA numbers for Q2 show that unbundled lines accounted for 23% of the Dutch DSL market (KPN's numbers suggest 24%), but based on KPN's numbers today, it looks as if this has now expanded by a further 1 - 2 percentage points in this quarter, to over 400k in total.

The Dutch market is about to see another wave of unbundling onslaught, led by Wanadoo and Tiscali, but local players are not holding back either. Local CLEC Versatel last week unveiled a partially unbundled product with some challenging pricing (1Mbps DSL plus carrier preselect-based unlimited national calling to landlines for EUR30 per month), and I think this is sure to be merely the tip of the iceberg.